I got out and looked at the phone. A gray faceless blob looked out at me with one foggy blue eye in the middle of it.

“Hello, can you all see me? Can you all understand me? I’m using this thing here, so everyone should be hearing me in their own colloquiality. If not, speak up now please.”

I heard it louder, from outside. I looked through the window and saw the same face-less blob, miles wide, staring down out of the sky.

“Alrighty. Hey–uh, so. I don’t really do this–I’m not supposed to do this. But, well– I was assigned to monitor your planet some hundred thousand or so years back.”

The thing made a goo-ey, gargle sound of delight.

“It was beautiful,” the thing continued. “But then you guys grew out of the muck and you were beautiful too, sometimes. Interesting, innovative; did you know you’re the only race in the whole universe to invent straws? Really! It is incredible, and the bendy-ones, get-outta here. Anyways. Lately you all have been doing a whole lot of fucked up shit. Which is fine, every species has their burdens to bear, but really. The murdering and the rape and the beating each other up all of the time, I mean–well, not the point. Point is, I’ve kinda grown attached to you guys. And uh–hm…sorry, I have never spoken in front of people before. I’ve been watching a buuunch of TEDx talks though, to prepare.”

The blob shifted around a bit on the screen and made another goo-ey sound before continuing; “yeah–so basically I’m gonna start zapping you guys. I have this zapper thing here and basically I can see everything all of you are doing all of the time and so like–if you’re gonna beat your kid, or rape someone, or eat someone else’s lunch out of the office fridge…”

There was a pause, the blob sat there. It gave me time to run out onto my porch to get a real good look at him. On the stairs I heard him mutter a bit and then say, “that–uh, that was a joke. Sorry–oh yeah, it isn’t funny. I got all mixed up, sorry guys. Sorry–so yeah if you do any of those things like that, you-know, I am gonna use my zappy thing here and then, well–yeah, your gone. Poof. Dead.”

“What do you guys think? I mean, I thought it was a pretty good idea. I don’t care about what any of you look like or who you bang, hah. But, you know, like I’m not gonna’ just kill random people. If you’re like…”

He ruminated a moment and then continued with more confidence, “like, a dick–yeah. Don’t be a dick. Just don’t beat people ’cause they look or think different than you, don’t hurt others or like, do the whole murder thing, you-know, like dick things. K?”

“Yeah–don’t be a dick and–like, everything is cool. You guys just used to be pretty cool and lately you’ve been a bunch of dicks. So, yeah. I think that covers everything, I hope you guys got something out of this, I know I have. Feeling pret-t-t-y good. Yeah. cool. K, peace.

Oh yeah and if you all are worried about me spying on your floppy parts and all of that, I’m not like that. I’m not that guy.

We headed to Memphis
A city known for blues music
and segregation
(segregation is a thing
like when you’re a kid
and you try to keep your peas
out of your mashed potatoes
except you have an irrational fear of peas
and you’re a potato)
we had dinner at a place
that didn’t have any peas
they had shrimp though
and it was good–
blackened
We asked the waitress
for a place to see some blues
she told us about a place
in that part of town
(that is a thing that no one talks about
it is similar to them or those)
“Take a taxi”
she told us
“I always take a taxi
when I go out
in that part of town”
We thanked her
and ate shrimp